Cara Hunter is a Northern Irish Social Democratic and Labour Party politician. She is a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) representing the electoral district of East Londonderry, which was co-opted on 18 May 2020. As one of the youngest female MLAs in the history of Northern Ireland, her political background is closely connected to the issues of mental health, youth and education policy, and community involvement in the post-conflict Northern Ireland.
Cara Hunter Biography | |
|---|---|
| Real Name: | Cara Hunter |
| Birth Date: | November 8, 1995 |
| Age: | 30 Years |
| Birthplace: | Northern Ireland, United Kingdom |
| Height: | – |
| Husband: | Peter Eastwood |
Early Life
Cara Hunter was born on 8 November 1995 in Northern Ireland and brought up in the Causeway Coast and County Tyrone region. She lived briefly in the United States at the age of nine, where she studied at the Simi Valley High School in California. This early travel experience in another country exposed her to a broader culture and provided her with a broader viewpoint before she went back home to resume her studies. She would later get advanced education in journalism, where she attained a Bachelor’s degree in journalism.
During her childhood and even in college, Hunter grew up being interested in mental-health and community advocacy. She was inspired by events in her locality and the suffering of young people in Northern Ireland after the conflict, and she got engaged in mental-health projects and organisations that supported young people. These were the initial experiences that formed her sense of service to the people and formed the basis of her political career.
Cara Hunter Career
The formal political career of Hunter started in 2017 when she became a member of the SDLP. She was elected a councillor to the Derry City and Strabane District Council, the Derg area, in May 2019, and later became the Deputy Mayor of Derry City and Strabane at an unusually youthful age.
Cara Hunter was co-opted to the Northern Ireland Assembly representing East Londonderry in May 2020, after the death of former MLA John Dallat, becoming the youngest woman MLA in the history of the Assembly in Northern Ireland. Since joining the Assembly, she has served as SDLP Education Spokesperson, and as a member of the Education Committee, the Infrastructure and Health committees.
Her policy priorities are in mental-health services, suicide prevention, the end of violence against women and girls, addiction and dual diagnosis assistance, youth services, sustainable childcare, and equality promotion in the political arena. She has established the Addiction and Dual Diagnosis All-Party Group to do accessible support and harm-reduction models.
Hunter has faced challenges herself: also in 2022, she was the target of a massive online harassment campaign in which she was targeted with a deep-fake video, a tactic she labeled as an intentional attempt of intimidation. This experience has shaped her interest in AI ethics and online safety, which she enumerates in her policy interests.
Personal Life
In September 2025, Cara Hunter married her husband, Peter Eastwood, in County Donegal. She posted the news on social media with the tagline the “votes are in we said yes”. #LandslideVictory” and posted personal shots of the wedding. Before the wedding news, no publicly-reported information concerning her partner or relationship existed. Therefore, the publicly verifiable facts are that she is married to Peter Eastwood in September 2025.
Social Media
Cara Hunter has an active social media presence and was engaging in constituency and advocacy efforts through social media. She has approximately 15.7K followers on Instagram under the name @Carahuntermla. On Instagram and X (previously Twitter), she shares about her Assembly work, education, and youth policy, mental-health campaigns, community events, and personal milestones (such as her wedding).
According to her profile, her interests include Education and youth, New Ireland, loves peace and people, and she uses her social media to promote policy work (meetings, speeches, outreach to constituents) and personal messages (e.g., posts about mental-health awareness). Her use of social media fits her generational profile and assists her in keeping in touch with younger voters and her constituency in East Londonderry and the region as a whole.
Cara Hunter Net Worth
The personal net worth of Cara Hunter is not publicly verified, and there is no reliable source that could help to derive it. She works as a state servant and is therefore paid the same as an MLA in Northern Ireland, plus she is considered in different capacities like committee membership and allowances. Certain property documents suggest she is linked to a freehold retail unit in Coleraine (with her name listed on the tenancy schedule) owned by an entity in one of the brochures, which would not be regarded as a definite personal net-worth figure.